03. Masters of Flux and Anchor (34 page)

Sondra began screaming hysterically, and Matson rushed in to see her pressed up against a wall, looking wild and terrified. He started to move towards her, but Mervyn put out a shaky hand and prevented him. It went on inter¬minably, until both men thought they could bear no more, but finally she collapsed into a sobbing heap. Then Mervyn allowed Matson to go to her. But it was another day before she came around enough to even recognize him.

"They took me and they made me into cattle," she managed to utter at last. "They took from me all that was human and made me an animal!" She sat there on the bed, legs up, arms clasped around them, as if trying to shrink into a tiny ball. "I was raped, even gang raped, so many times I can't count. Raped and beaten, too. I hated it. I felt filthy, degraded—but I couldn't resist them," she said, with a faraway look in her eyes and a flatness in her tone. "After a while, all that's left of your mind just surrenders. You just don't care anymore. Your mind stops working, and only your senses are left." She paused for a moment, then added, "You wind up doing any disgusting thing they want—and they want a lot. We ate human flesh near the start to stay alive. They killed her and we ate it raw."

Mervyn looked over at Matson. "Some friends you got. Some real high ideals there."

Matson just shook his head sadly. "It only hurts real bad 'cause it's kin. I have to be honest about that. You and me and even her spent a lot of our lives going to and even working with places just as depraved. It just wasn't us, or our people, and when we got sick of it we could quit or go into Anchor and drink some sanity. Now it's come to Anchor. Seems to me it was inevitable." Sondra didn't even hear him.

"You're still going back there?" the wizard asked.

He nodded. "When it's necessary. There's a big Central Committee meeting next week to address the problems that'll develop when the main Anchor populations are moved inland. They're talking about defense and an early warning and navigational system using wireless transmission. You be sure and tell them that where you're going. You tell 'em, too, that if they want to crack New Eden they better do it quickly. In another year it's going to be as permanent as that new land out there."

Mervyn nodded. "Remember, it's taken six months just to assemble this conference at all, and it would never have happened even now if they hadn't all received detailed reports of the truth. They're suspicious of and frightened to death of New Eden, but they're also scared and suspi¬cious of each other. We're talking a coalition of twenty-four Anchors and all the Fluxlands in between. It's unheard¬of." He sighed. "I wish you were coming with me."

"My place is here. Sondra's gonna need me for a while, and I'm better off in New Eden, where I can give them the shakes and they don't even realize it."

Mervyn left the next day, since he had many stops to make before reaching the conference, which by default was being held in the only Anchor with no army—Holy Anchor itself. It was a long trip for a weary and weakened wizard who could only stand there and scream, "I told you so!"

Sondra improved daily, although it was when she saw Spirit that things seemed to get much better. Spirit was shocked at what had been done to her half-sister, and she felt the pain and humiliation. She pleaded with the Soul Rider for some help, but the Rider could do little. Only a master computer could undo the matrix, as it called the spell, and master computers could not alter such a prime matrix without specific instructions from a human com¬mander. And there hadn't been a human commander for almost twenty-seven hundred years.

For Sondra, it was difficult to look at the future at all. She could not change the way she looked, or the powerful urges of her body. She had been physically strong, and now she was weak. She had been a powerful wizard, and now she found it impossible to create the simplest spell. She had hardly ever cried, but she cried a lot now, and had trouble sleeping. It was the inability to fathom the printed word, though, that was most troubling to her. Not only did the scratches mean nothing to her, but she found she couldn't even comprehend how they worked. She felt, somehow, less than human. Finally, Matson sat down with her.

"Look, honey, you're gonna have to decide things now, whether you want to or not. I'm not gonna be a Mervyn and say 'I told you so.' because that don't mean shit anymore. What's done is done. Your first big decision is just who the hell you are."

She looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Are you my daughter, Sondra, who got wounded in a fracas and maybe isn't what she was but she's still daugh¬ter of Matson? Or are you Sondra the Fluxgirl, totally surrendering to what happened and giving up doing any¬thing except being somebody's slave?"

She felt like crying again, and fought back tears. "You don't know what it was like. What it's still like. Half of me wants to get up, find the biggest gun I can lift with these arms, go back in there and blast away at every man I see until they cut me down. The other half"—she did sob at this—"keeps saying, well, maybe I ought to just do what they say Cass and Suzl did. I think I can understand them now. The only thing I'm good for is a good screw, but that life would drive me up the wall."

"Well, maybe that's where you're different from them. They gave up, but they were inside. You're not."

"You heard what Mervyn said. I'm going to be like— this—forever. My Flux power's shot to hell, and those six months and this body are with me. too. O.K.. I'm outside— but what's that get me? This Fluxgirl thing isn't just vacant eyes and saying 'yes, sir' to everybody. My mind always ran my body, but no more. The body—this body—runs the mind. It's like a drug you have to have all the time, one that you'll do anything for. I'm still an animal—I'm just one who knows."

"There are still possibilities. You could stay here with Spirit and the staff. No matter what I think you're still better off than she is. You could go home, or take refuge with the Guild."

"I—I couldn't go back, not to where people knew me. I couldn't stand it. The Guild would just be a constant reminder of what I've lost. Anyplace else and I'd be a traveling whore or a captive of some Fluxlord in no time. And staying here wouldn't give me what I have to have. So I kill myself, or I go back. That's not much of a choice."

He thought about it. "What about being a spy and a hostage?"

"What?"

"The big shots of New Eden know who you are, and they'd like very much to trust me but they just can't— quite. They need something to hold over me, and I need something for them to hold over me so I can crack their inner council. That's the hostage part."

She was suddenly very interested, and he could see a little of the old fire coming back into her eyes. "Go on."

"You think you could act the part? I can't know what you've gone through, or how you feel—how can anybody who didn't go through it? But I get the feeling that you're looking for any excuse not to stick a gun in your mouth. Could you be a good little Fluxgirl among the upper crust? Good enough to not only fool the men but the other Fluxgirls, too?"

"What are you getting at?"

"Fluxgirls can go places men can't. They're safe. They're servile, obedient, fearful, and, besides, they can't read or write or understand complicated machinery. They service and clean the science building, and they also clean the offices of the important. Nobody cares if a Fluxgirl's around when they're discussing plans, politics, and projects. That's the way Mervyn and the others have gotten their information from the start, but nobody has ever had direct access to the top. But that's just where they'd want you, so you were always around my haunts. It'll be rough. They'll re-run you through a conditioning program that'll make the other one seem tame, just to be on the safe side. You might have to marry a big shot, and if you survive all that and get caught, well, they'll give you one of the dumb drugs and don't even think of what'll happen to me."

"But one reason it's so safe around Fluxgirls is they can't even read. Some spy I'd make."

"You still got your brain, and it always was a pretty good one. You're still tough as nails—and anybody but you would be broken and hopelessly insane from what you went through. You got eyes to see pictures and maps and diagrams; you got ears to overhear all sorts of chatter. You can get lots of stuff from sheer girl's gossip—who's come to town, who's leaving town, all that. Only you can decide if your wounds are fatal."

She smiled, then hugged and kissed him. "I'm your daughter, remember! I won't get caught!"

The Central Committee meeting had gone on for days. The large-scale building projects were going well, and thanks to the Glider Corps and the science team's use of the new field of photography they had a pretty good, if somewhat rough, idea of what the New Land was like.

The Great Sea, as they were calling it, was enormous—it cut an irregular shape from the former Anchors Logh. Mantzee, and Mareh, and seemed to cover about sixty percent of the old void. It also appeared quite deep, al¬though nobody knew how deep, but while much of it was still unmapped they had the outlines and the positions of some major islands.

The Hellgate remained intact, although all the amplifiers the Nine had established to seal it had been destroyed in the program. The sea came almost to the Gate, but stopped short by a kilometer or two. The Gate itself retained a flat, greenish apron not heretofore visible stretching about three hundred kilometers around the saucer-like depression. While some Flux power was possible there, it was quite weak and limited: only in the rear part of the tunnel nearest the swirling Gate itself was the old magic possible. Since it was so limited in area but accessible from all four former temples this was considered quite handy. The link between the four temple basements also still worked, which simpli¬fied communication and interaction between commands enormously, but since traffic could enter only from and between the temples, and not from the Hellgate due to the defense mechanisms, it would not be as useful if the centralized capital were moved near it, as they had planned.

Although they were still finding small knots of people, they basically knew what they had to deal with now, and even Champion was pleased and impressed by the thor¬oughness of the transformation program. The prior popula¬tion of all four Anchors had been 1.4 million males and 1.9 million females. They had thought they'd known their own Flux neighborhood well, and after the Great Sea they had dramatically reduced their expectations, and they were pleased, if a bit shocked, to now count over seven hundred thousand new men and almost nine hundred and fifty thousand new Fluxgiris. While there had apparently been some period of infertility after the transformation, it ap¬peared that almost half being processed now were pregnant. It was a sizeable population, but one that they felt they could feed and clothe. The problem was adequate housing. Most were now living in makeshift camps with primitive shelter and facilities, doing extensive cultivation and planting, while several battalions of men were erecting temporary and prefabricated housing units far inland. It was hoped that they would be ready for occupancy, if not exactly cozy and comfortable, by the time cold weather set in, which would not be too long from now.

These things were proceeding well, but basic communi¬cations between the outposts and settlements was still de¬pendent on hastily strung wires that often as not didn't work, and hardly covered more than a fraction of the distance. Matson had ingratiated himself with them for suggesting that while one couldn't walk into a Hellgate one could most certainly walk out, and they'd strung wires from all four temples into the tunnel and back up, giving them all communication with the still-primitive new capital, between the Hellgate and the Great Sea.

Their mind-set was such that they had accepted Sondra back without even being surprised. They had insisted on a thorough reconditioning by their top experts, and he sympa¬thized with what she had to be going through but knew that it couldn't come close to what she'd already survived. If that old spark could be rekindled after her first horrible experience, it was not likely to be extinguished by the usual methods; but the further conditioning would serve to make her instinctively act as this society thought she should. That was good for the safety of them both.

Finally, the Committee got around to the nub of the problem.

"Gentlemen, this new land is so vast—we must have near-instant communications. We must know when we're being invaded, not three weeks after the fact. We must be able to coordinate schedules, goods, food. We need faster means of transportation and we need instant communications. Dr. Sligh?"

"I have put our best minds on these projects,"  the scientist replied, "and we have solutions, but they are not immediate ones. I fear. Communications is easier. You can imagine our chagrin when we discovered, after working there for over twenty-five years, that the intercom system in the old temples is wireless! A signal is broadcast and it travels by the easiest and best route to the assigned destination. A large system could broadcast through the air to every corner of the land from its center—and vice-versa. It is a matter of power. We have the diagrams and small systems with which to build it, but we have no sufficient power source as yet. The ancients depended far too much on Flux, but they knew exactly how to use it. We do not. and unless someone wants to suggest opening the Hellgate we can't get to it anyway."

There were chuckles all around at that.

"However, in the historical library in Holy Anchor, of all places, are many books with basic principles apparently dating back far before Flux. They are elementary physics books, possibly teaching aids for the young, but they are most fascinating. We know the principle of the storage battery—even the city's Flux-gained electricity comes from there. We know that steam under pressure will gener¬ate great force, and from those books we have the princi¬ple of what they call the turbine. They will be tricky to build and trickier, and very dangerous, to test."

"Where are you going to get the steam—boil the Great Sea?" one Judge cracked. "It must be there for some reason." They all roared.